


hearts like puzzle pieces

by twistedsky



Series: ramen24 [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 15:26:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2234037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedsky/pseuds/twistedsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Mulan and Aurora rescue Phillip, there's that pesky matter of dealing with the feelings the three of them have for each other. Pretty AU post 2x01.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hearts like puzzle pieces

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing, and all mistakes are my own. This fulfills the 'what do you mean you had my baby?' trope for Ramen24, a minor writing project I'm doing with a friend.

Death, to Phillip’s mind, is a bit less death-like than he would have imagined.

He supposes that the soul-sucking wraith hadn’t technically killed him(at least, that’s what Mulan and Aurora tell him when he opens his eyes and sees them what seems like moments after he’d given his life to avoid further casualties), but it still seems rather odd.

He’s still emotional and confused by what he’d thought had been his last moments, and that requires a bit of reconciling to the reality in front of him.

Aurora is rambling happily, teary-eyed and glowing with happiness.  She’s explaining that they’d searched for a way to find him, that they hadn’t given up on him(he’s appreciative of that, of course, but it’s a little concerning that it’s been a _year_ ). She’s sitting on the side of the bed he’s in, holding one of his hands with both of hers. Mulan sits on the other side of him, smiling contentedly, but she’s clearly nervous about something, as _her_ hands are fighting a nervous little war. Mulan is a genius with her sword, but she's never been very good at knowing what to do with her hands when she's nervous and there's not a weapon in them. 

He stays mostly quiet(beyond more than a few I love yous), because Aurora has so much to say about their journey to save him. Mulan, who is far less animated, seems to have something to say, but isn’t _saying_ it.

He’s struck by how close Aurora and Mulan seem to be. Not so much physically, though they do seem very comfortable around each other, but emotionally. Mulan keeps looking to Aurora while she talks, and Aurora occasionally looks to her for approval, as if she wants to make sure she’s explaining things properly.

Later, he thinks, he’ll have to thank Mulan for taking such good care of Aurora, because it can’t have been easy. As time goes on, he thinks he ought to thank Aurora for taking care of Mulan too, actually.

Aurora is his true love,  but—there are no buts, he thinks. There’s no more room for such thoughts now than there was before. Nothing has changed, except Aurora and Mulan know and care for each other, and Phillip doesn’t think he can possibly ruin that. That’s not his place, and it wouldn’t be remotely fair to either one of them. He’s never even let himself admit how he feels about Mulan anyway. A little more denial can’t hurt, he thinks.

Aurora runs out of steam quite suddenly, and there’s a moment of silence. She looks to Mulan, who gives her a nod of encouragement.

Aurora turns back to him, and he braces himself(he’s not sure what for, but he can tell it’s serious). She opens her mouth to speak when suddenly a cry breaks the silence for them.

“Is that a baby?” he asks as Aurora and Mulan both jump up and rush out of the room.

Aurora looks thankful for the interruption, and Mulan looks—sorry, he supposes? It’s an odd look.

As they rush out of the room, Phillip looks around and sighs, getting out of bed gingerly. He’d have expected to feel weaker(though he’s definitely felt better).

He makes his way out into the castle hallway, and follows the sound of the crying and the shushing.

When he enters the room all of the commotion is coming from, he has to lean against the door frame.

Aurora is cooing and holding the baby, and Mulan is stroking the baby’s head, murmuring about how everything is going to be okay. It looks very young, maybe only a few months—and this is enough to concern him, because he and Aurora had been intimate right before the wraith had taken his soul(and they'd certainly been intimate before he and Mulan had even managed to wake Aurora up, so there were a lot of opportunities for him to impregnate her).

“Is that—“ he starts to ask, but then he falters. He's a father.

Aurora and Mulan look up sharply, and the other woman in the room(he assumes she’s some sort of wetnurse or something), looks like she’d like to flee.

Aurora, looking more nervous than he’s ever seen her before, forces a smile. “Phillip, meet your daughter, Rose.”

Phillip walks in slowly, stunned. He stops in front of Aurora and looks down at the baby.

“You had my child,” he says, and it’s not a question, obviously, he hadn’t even needed her to tell him because he’d known the second he’d looked into the room.

“Would you like to hold her?” Mulan asks, and there’s something odd about that that he can’t quite discern, but he’s more concerned with the baby that Aurora is gently lifting into his arms.

Once, when he was around six or seven, he’d held a baby’s hand, because it was some sort of royal custom when a new princess was born, and he’d been so stunned by the baby’s grasp on his finger that he’d almost run away.

This child—his _daughter_ —does the same, and he’s surprised that he doesn’t feel that same streak of fear.

Peripherally he sees Aurora and Mulan stand close together watching him with the child, and he’s struck by how familial they seem, how protective, and he realizes for the first time the depth of their connection.

They’ve been raising the girl together, he realizes.

The baby makes a gurgling sound and then smiles slightly, and it’s suddenly not hard to imagine why—anyone in the presence of his daughter must turn into the pile of goo that he swears he is as he begins to coo at little Rose.

~~

Aurora still loves him(that time apart, when one of you is experiencing nothing, and the other is still alive, making choices and _feeling_ things is dangerous, as he well knows, so this is an important fact).

He and Aurora leave Mulan with the child, who picks her up and has a smile on her face that causes his stomach to clench.

There’s magic in her face, he thinks, and if it weren’t for the fact that he’d just found out that he has a child, he would probably feel that worrisome ache in his chest that he always feels when he looks at Mulan for a second too long.

Her smile is radiant, as radiant as Aurora’s, and if he didn’t know Aurora was the mother, he’s not sure he could tell, because there is such love and affection in her every movement, and in the warmth of her smile, it actually terrifies him.

He doesn’t think he’s seen her smile that brightly in a very long time, which is a travesty, he thinks.

Aurora leads him back to the room and makes him get back into bed. “We’re rebuilding,” she says.

“The castle?”

“Life,” she corrects. “Life in the kingdom. We’re finding new ways to live, and we’re chasing out rabid beasts, and we’re—we’re happy, Phillip,” Aurora says. The _we’re_ makes him wonder, but he presses it out of his mind, and Aurora leans forward to kiss him, and grasp his hand.

He supposes it’s a worry for another day.

~~

Phillip has spent a lot of time with soldiers, and he remembers the men that had had relationships closer than friendship(like love, he thinks), and over the next few days, when he watches Aurora and Mulan together, he’s reminded of those particular men.

There’s a clench in his belly—maybe jealousy he thinks, and he feels badly for it. They’re friends, and they’ve taken care of each other and the kingdom, and he has no room to say anything.

Aurora is his wife, he reminds himself, so maybe he does.

He doesn’t see anything untoward—just small touches and smiles that could mean anything(he’s not a fool, he knows that while Aurora is kind, she’s not entirely so open naturally with just anyone, and he’s only ever seen Mulan this comfortable and happy with a small handful of people).

There’s an unkindness in him over this, he knows, and he tries to squash it, ignore it, and make it stop, but it’s a lot harder than simply setting his mind to it.

On the third day of his recovery, he and Aurora slip back into old patterns, and he presses his lips to her neck, and traces every stretch mark on her stomach from carrying their child.

He tries to make sure it stays about her(about _them_ ), but it doesn’t quite work out that way, because while their coupling is lovely, it’s missing something.

They’d used to feel complete, he thinks, and now there’s something missing.

It’s a terrible sort of feeling(and the worst part is that he thinks he knows what it is).

~~

He can see in Aurora’s eyes that she still loves him. Her heart has always been in her eyes, and there’s still a sparkle in them when she looks at him, and there’s a natural inclination to smile when she’s near him.

He loves her, truly.

There’s this thing she does—she’s constantly looking at him when they’re near each other, but not standing right next to each other, as if she’s terrified that he won’t be there when she searches for him, because she’s so used to him not being there.

He doesn’t blame her, because it certainly isn’t her fault, but it makes things difficult at times.

He’s sure it’ll go away with time, and Mulan(who after avoiding him for a day or two is now pretending that nothing has changed, and plays the role of the confidante as well as she always has), tells him he’s right.

Aurora’s just worried, and she loves him, Mulan tells him, and there’s this look on her face and this _yearning_ in her voice that’s so utterly painful that it makes him feel like someone reached into his chest and ripped his heart right out.

~~

He’s only ever admitted it once(even to himself, he hadn’t let himself say or even think it), but he loves Mulan.

He’s in love with her, actually, and it’s awful and obscene and it makes him feel sick.

He loves Aurora, too, and he’s never heard about anything like this, except in stories of choices and heartbreak.

The fact of the matter though is that he has a daughter with Aurora, he’s married to Aurora, he’s _in love_ with Aurora, and so even if he wanted to make a choice, the choice has already been made, truly, and there’s nothing left to do.

~~

Rose is beautiful.

He’s imagined children before, but the reality is better than any of those dreams. He remembers early on with Aurora when they’d talked about children for the very first time, when she’d reached out to grasp his hand and had smiled at him with such love and devotion he’d almost wept from it.

He likes to spend time with Rose(who has quite a few admirers, which occasionally makes things a bit difficult, because he wants so much time alone with her, like years and years, which he knows is unrealistic and unfair).

He’s missed out on the pregnancy, and on three and a half months of her life, and so he has to make up for lost time. He resents those months, even though it’s no one’s fault.

He wonders if things would be different now if none of that nonsense with the wraith had happened.

He stops wondering when he realizes that Mulan would have left early on without a reason to stay.

She’d stayed for him, he knows, until she’d stayed for Aurora.

The three women in his life are now all so key to his happiness that he doesn’t know what to do without any of them.

It worries him that Mulan seems ready to leave, somehow.

She doesn’t seem to want to—they’ll talk, and she’ll mention some plan for the future with Aurora, with Phillip, with Rose, and she’ll correct herself, because she doesn’t _belong_ in their story.

Phillip delicately assures her that she should stay, but he’s not sure she believes him, or really understands what he’s even doing.

She belongs, he thinks.

They’re a family of sorts, and the idea of that family being broken up is _frightening_ to him.

~~

Mulan begins to make concrete plans to leave, and it begins to agitate Aurora.

She tells him to tell her not to, to stop her, as if he has some sort of control.

“She’d listen to you!” she says, turning what seems to want to be a yell into a hiss.

Phillip just looks at her. “She’d listen to _you,”_ he says, and he’s not proud of the way his words make Auroras’s face harden.

“You’re her friend,” she reminds him.

“So are _you,”_ he says, and they could do this forever, because they both have a claim to her(and she to them), and it’s nonsensical that she’s even imagining leaving, because she _belongs_ here, with them.

Aurora paces, and Phillip is glad that Rose isn’t in the room, because the negativity is stifling.

Aurora is rarely angry, but now she’s furious(he wonders, later, if that fury had been more directed at him, or herself).

~~

Aurora is a good person, of this much Phillip has always been sure. She apologizes for her anger, barely beating him to his own apology.

“I—“ Aurora hesitates, looking down at her hands. “I think she’d be happier here.”

Phillip agrees. He just doesn’t know how to make that work, because this pining from every side is making things complicated and they’re all unhappy.

Maybe things would be easier if she left.

Phillip is reminded of the first time he met Mulan, and of the first conversations they had.

She’d told him of her struggles to prove herself, of how tired she was of not fitting in, of being forced to do things that weren’t right for her.

She hadn’t chosen the easy path, he realizes.

They’d searched and fought for a way to Aurora then, and that certainly hadn’t been easy either.

This is difficult now, he thinks, because it’s so important.

He’s just so unsure of what the answer is.

~~

He watches them carefully.

It isn’t that he doesn’t trust them, because he does. This isn’t an issue of trust.

It’s just fascinating to watch them, actually.

It surprises him to think that, but it’s quite true. Mulan softens, and Aurora brightens. There’s something beautiful about the way they seem to affect each other, even though it’s often tentative and heavy with emotions that they can’t possibly express.

There’s kindness and love and respect in their interactions, and there are times when he wonders if they’d be better off without him.

They’d been getting along perfectly well before, and now everything is splintering, and every interaction is so loaded and it makes him _ache_.

~~

“Are you in love with her?” Phillip asks one day, mere days before Mulan is supposed to leave, because there’s only so much time left, and he can’t live like this anymore(and he can’t live with her gone either, he thinks, and he doesn’t think Aurora can either).

Aurora is stunned. She turns away from her nightstand to look at him in utter surprise.

There’s a hint of realization, and for the first time Phillip realizes that Aurora doesn’t even completely understand her feelings for Mulan.

He’d thought there’d been _awareness_ of a sort, like they were openly loving and wanting each other, but it turns out that he was wrong.

He winces when she clenches her jaw and tightly squeezes the side of her chair. She’s as pale white as the moon now, and he gets out of bed to walk closer to her, kneeling in front of her, putting his hand over hers.

“It’s okay,” he says simply.

“I don’t—“ Aurora breathes deeply. “I didn’t—“ she looks aghast.

“It’s okay,” he repeats, and she nods her head emptily.

“Are you?” she asks finally.

He hesitates. “I believe I asked you first.”

Aurora bites her lip and smiles slightly. “I suppose you did.”

~~

“I’m going to ask her to stay,” Phillip tells Aurora. “If that’s okay.”

Mulan intends to leave the next day, and so they’re certainly cutting it close, but they don’t have a choice in that matter—it’s either stop her now, or let her go, and Phillip can’t imagine his life without her anymore.

Aurora nods slightly, as if it’s no matter to her, and then she gives the charade up, looking towards him and meeting his eyes. “Thank you.”

~~

The next day, when Mulan is supposed to be having a going away meal before she leaves(the time when Phillip intends to ask her to stay), she’s already gone.

He shouldn’t be surprised by this.

Mulan hates goodbyes, and she couldn’t wait to get away, and he should have seen this coming.

Aurora is upset, but she’s hiding it well. There’s a glossy look to her eyes, because they’re full of tears she can’t let spill free.

Later, she disappears, and he finds her holding Rose close to her heart, rocking back and forth in her chair.

He doesn’t make any loud noises, because he doesn’t want to spook her. She needs a moment alone, he thinks.

So does he.

He leaves her there, cooing at their little girl, and goes off to find someone to train with. A bit of physical exertion will help, hopefully.

~~

Aurora is trying, she’s pretending that everything is normal, that nothing has changed, but it’s not working.

Phillip tries to focus on what needs to be done, avoiding the feeling that he’s lost his closest friend(and a love, which he hates himself for acknowledging aloud to Aurora, because now there’s no simply denying it).

Aurora doesn’t hate him, of course, she’s too kind for that, too loving. But there are moments when she looks around and then turns to him, clearly disappointed, as if she’d been looking for Mulan.

He thinks, given enough time, that they’ll either move past it or they’ll grow to hate each other.

~~

It doesn’t come to that.

Mulan is seriously injured, and she’s brought back by the people she’d been traveling with, because she needs to heal.

She’ll likely live, he’s told when he pressures a healer for answers.

Something tight and painful clenches in his chest, and then releases.

Aurora sits next to her bed, holding her hand whenever possible.

Phillip begins to wonder if Mulan will even have the opportunity to even think of leaving again, because Aurora looks ready to strap her down if she even hints at it.

Mulan sleeps a lot, but she awakens a few times a day for a few minutes, and while that’s simply not enough, it’s better than nothing, and so Phillip waits patiently.

He walks in one day to see her awake, and Aurora’s hand on her cheek, and—it’s strange, because it looks like they’re about to kiss, like they want to, but can’t, like they’re just holding back because there’s a sense that it’s wrong, because Aurora is married to Phillip, and—he clears his throat.

Aurora’s hand drops guiltily.

Mulan looks like she might cry, and he’s only seen her cry maybe twice in all of their friendship, and they’ve been through quite a bit since that first day when Belle saved him that a lesser person would have cried over(he certainly had).

Aurora gets up to leave, and Phillip shakes his head. “No, don’t.”

He kneels down next to Mulan and picks up a hand, pressing a kiss to her palm.

“I love you,” Phillip says, facing Aurora. “And I love you,” he says to Mulan.

It’s only the second time he’s said it to her, and the first time had been easily ignored.

“And you—you love each other,” he says softly. “Don’t you?”

Mulan wipes away tears with her free hand and nods, meeting Aurora’s eyes.

Aurora smiles, slightly, leaning back towards her. “I love you too,” she says, placing her hand back against Mulan’s cheek the way it was when Phillip had walked in, but this time Mulan leans into it.

Tentatively, Mulan leans forward and kisses Aurora. It’s short and soft, and they pull away slowly.

Mulan squeezes Phillip’s hand, and he leans in to kiss her too, and it’s—it’s sort of like he’d always imagined it would be. It’s _right_.

It’s right like kissing Aurora is, but . . . different.

Aurora’s free hand grasps Phillip’s free one, and they just sit there smiling and gently sharing kisses.

It’s strange, he’ll admit, but they’re a family.

He thinks of Rose, asleep a few rooms away, and wonders how they’ll possibly explain to her what this means(because even now, he knows that this is forever, this is true love).

This is their happily ever after.  

 


End file.
